The Norwegian government is taking advice from their Institute of Public Health, who has stated that it has not recommended that all children aged fifteen and under be vaccinated. They are taking this approach because “there is little individual benefit for most children,” according to Minister of Health and Care Services Ingvild Kjerkol.
The Norwegian government explains,
“Children and adolescents are at very low risk of becoming seriously ill with COVID-19. The illness rarely results in children being admitted to hospital, and the average period of hospitalisation is one (1) day. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has reason to believe that the vaccine’s effectiveness against symptomatic illness with the Omicron variant is considerably reduced, compared with past virus variants.”
This correlates with data and science that’s emerged all over the world. For example, a German study indicated that zero healthy kids between the ages of 5-11 have died from COVID. The authors found that for children the risk of death is 3 per 1,000,000 if they don’t have an underlying health condition.
Jonas F Ludvigsson, a paediatrician at Örebro University Hospital and professor of clinical epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute showed the same thing in Sweden during the first wave in 2020.
Norwegian authorities have also explained that, according to a Major Danish newspaper, children can be better protected against future coronavirus variants if they are infected naturally instead of vaccinated. This also happens to correlate with science and is an evidence based assessment.
More than 130 studies have now been published emphasizing the power of natural immunity. This was also recently emphasized by the Head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Tel Aviv University, Professor Ehud Qimron. He has criticized the Israeli Minister of Health for all of their COVID policies in an eye opening letter.
Norway is also not recommending a second dose of a COVID vaccine for 12-15 year old children who have already had one dose due to the elevated risk of myocarditis. This also correlates with science. For example, in November 2021 Taiwan joined Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark in halting 2nd doses of a COVID vaccine for children under the age of 17 due to myocarditis concerns. In Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark they stopped for anyone under the age of 30.
A recent study out of the University of California showed that the risk of myocarditis may be greater as a result of the vaccine than the risk of being hospitalized for COVID for boys ages 12-15.
A Nature Medicine paper published on Dec 14, 2021 showed that myocarditis after vaccination (in this case, Moderna dose 2) was higher than myocarditis after a natural COVID infection for people <40. For men <40 specifically, dose 2 and dose 3 of Pfizer have more myocarditis than a COVID infection, and this is true for dose 1 and dose 2 of Moderna. If the authors fixed the denominator for viral infection (i.e. used sero-prevalence), it would look even worse, given that more people have been infected with COVID than we can test for.
All of this data does not even taking into account the fact that vaccine injuries may be grossly underreported when it comes to COVID vaccines.
If a child does not experience a “rare” adverse event from COVID vaccines, does it mean that their cardiovascular system has not been impacted at all in a negative way? What about long term consequences? There are simply too many questions, especially with no long term data, that do not currently have answers. Given the extremely low risk from COVID children face, vaccination is not supported by science.
Children without comorbidities have a greater chance of dying from drowning, car accidents, and the annual flu than they do from COVID, which has a 99.97 survival rate. It is also extremely rare for children to end up in hospital with COVID, as emphasized by the Norwegian government and data from around the world.
If infected with COVID-19, children ages 0-9 have on average a chance of 0.1% or 1/1000 of being hospitalized and, for ages 11-19 a 0.2% or 1/500 chance of being admitted to the hospital (Herrera-Esposito, 2021). This is based on seroprevalence data from eight locations around the world: England; France; Ireland; Netherlands; Spain; Atlanta, USA; New York, USA; Geneva, Switzerland. The infection fatality rate for 0–9-year-olds is estimated to be less than 1 in 200,000 (less than 5 in 1 million) and 1 in 55,000 for 10–19 year-olds.
Is it ethical to vaccinate healthy children without co-morbidities with COVID products given these facts? How much more protection can a vaccine provide when the chances of full recovery are already so high?
The Norwegian government does say that the vaccine for these age groups is still available and can be requested by parents. They express the following,
“The vaccine may be particularly relevant for children with chronic illnesses, families whose children have close contact with people with a special need for protection, and children with increased risk because they will be spending time in countries with a higher infection rate or poorer access to health services. It may also be relevant for children whose lives are particularly vulnerable for other reasons.”
For those looking to better understand why people are hesitant to vaccinate their children against COVID, you can read more here.